GOProud!

[Martinus]

April 15, 2009
New Gay Conservative Group Launches
By Kerry Eleveld
Two former Log Cabin Republicans officially introduced on Wednesday their new, breakaway group for gay conservatives, GOProud, a 527 political action committee.

"April 15th is rarely an exciting, or a day of celebration, for conservatives," Chris Barron, GOProud's chairman of the Board of Directors, said at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington, D.C. "Today is an exception, because today is a very exciting day for conservatives, particularly for gay conservatives."

Barron said GOProud had been founded because of "a void on the federal stage" for gay conservatives and that their main goal was "to help return conservative majorities to the Senate and the House in 2010 and return a conservative to the White House in 2012."

Barron worked for two years as Log Cabin's national political director and Jimmy LaSalvia, GOProud's executive director, spent a couple years with LCR as outreach director and then policy director. The third founder, who was not present at the press conference, is GOProud board member Bruce Carroll, who is best known for launching GayPatriot.org in 2004.

Both Barron and LaSalvia interviewed recently to be Log Cabin's executive director -- a position that has yet to be filled -- but they were passed over for the job.

The formation of their new group, they said, was not motivated by a personal grudge against Log Cabin as much as a difference of opinion over priorities.

"Quite honestly, I don't see it as competition," said Barron. "We're working on a set of issues that Log Cabin's not working on." He praised LCR's work on a state and local level but noted that part of the group's main priorities included passing legislation on hate crimes, employment nondiscrimination, safe schools, and relationship recognition. "All laudable goals," said Barron, "but it's just not stuff we're going to be working on."

GOProud's press release laid out a 10-point legislative plan that emphasized federal issues such as tax reform (including repeal of the estate tax and equitable tax treatment for domestic partners), free-market health care reform that would allow people to buy plans across state lines (theoretically increasing access to same-sex couples who could buy insurance from states where insurers offer domestic partner coverage), and privatizing social security by creating inheritable personal savings accounts (same-sex partners are currently prevented from receiving social security survivor benefits).

Barron and LaSalvia said their goal was to raise $500,000 this year but gave no details about their funding sources other than to say they had "donors all across the country." They hope to increase that number next year as they head into an election cycle.

"First, we've got to build the infrastructure and that's what this year's about: getting the message out, growing our ranks, building our data base, building our donor data base and then preparing for 2010 so that we can be an active participant," Barron said.

The group got a little boost in spreading their message the past couple weeks with a story on Politico.com and then an editorial written by former Bush speechwriter, William McGurn, in The Wall Street Journal. Barron noted that hundreds of people sought them out following the coverage and estimated they had attracted around 500 members so far.

The target audience for GOProud, said LaSalvia, was "a little bit younger and more Internet savvy." Though the organization has no plans to hire field staff, they anticipate posting regular videos and podcasts to their site and capitalizing on mass text messaging to engage people.

Log Cabin is hosting their national convention later this week in Washington, D.C., where John McCain's daughter, Meghan McCain, and his chief strategist during last year's election, Steve Schmidt, will both be speaking.

http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid79143.asp

Next: Jews who secretly believe in Jesus. 

[garbon]

Despite the name, the legislative points as summarized in the article sound lovely.

[Valmy]

A new group for garbon to join!

[Zanza]

Next: Jews who secretly believe in Jesus. 

Our Christian Democrat party has a Turkish subgroup.

[garbon]

A new group for garbon to join!

I like pride.

[derspiess]

Sounds good to me.

[crazy canuck]

Next: Jews who secretly believe in Jesus. 

Believe it or not I am pretty sure that all gays dont think alike.

[garbon]

I like pride.

Wow, where my mind goes. I actually meant to write: I don't have pride

[Faeelin]

Despite the name, the legislative points as summarized in the article sound lovely.

Meh. It's not clear to me how the Log Cabins don't care about these ideas.

[garbon]

Meh. It's not clear to me how the Log Cabins don't care about these ideas.

He praised LCR's work on a state and local level but noted that part of the group's main priorities included passing legislation on hate crimes, employment nondiscrimination, safe schools, and relationship recognition. "All laudable goals," said Barron, "but it's just not stuff we're going to be working on."

[Martinus]

So the difference is that LCR are politely asking Republicans to stop gaybashing them, and these guys don't even go that far. 

[Martinus]

Next: Jews who secretly believe in Jesus. 

Believe it or not I am pretty sure that all gays dont think alike.

Well, I bet not all Jews hated Hitler either.

[garbon]

So the difference is that LCR are politely asking Republicans to stop gaybashing them, and these guys don't even go that far. 

Actually it seems that GOProud are focusing on issues that also have benefits to straight people...whereas the Log Cabin Republicans include a lot of issues that have little to no tangible benefit to straight people.

[PDH]

How the fuck am I supposed to pronounce "GOProud" anyway?  They need another "p" in there.

[Berkut]

Count on Marty to be offended that there are republicans who think being gay is not a terrible thing.